Travian

Travian
File:Travian Logo.png
Developer(s)	Travian Games GmbH
Engine	PHP
Platform(s)	Interpreted script; platform independent
Release	September 5, 2004 (2004-09-05) (version 1) 12 March 2005 (version 2) 30 June 2006 (version 3)
Genre(s)	Real-time military strategy City-building

Travian is a massively multiplayer online browser-based strategy game developed by the German software company Travian Games GmbH.

The game's developers drew roughly from Classical antiquity and particularly from the Roman Empire to create a predominantly militaristic real-time strategy. It has been suggested that Travian's creators may have drawn from an earlier award-winning German game, The Settlers of Catan, for layout; there are similarities in resource development and theme as well.

Along with three English versions, and the original German version, Travian has been translated into over 40 other languages, and has over 5 million players and over 300 servers worldwide. In 2006, it won the Superbrowsergame Award, in the large games category.

Travian is programmed in PHP and runs in most modern browsers (such as Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer). Travian was also the first game of its type to be playable on mobile phones. When played on a mobile phone, it used Java. However, the Java application is no longer developed or supported.

Gameplay

Every player enters Travian as a leader of a small village as a Roman, Gaul or Teuton with two people—a population of two—in their village. The village has only one building in its village centre, known as the Main Building, around which are spaces for further buildings to be constructed. There are some prerequisites for constructing most buildings.

The outside part of the village in the game Travian. (Click for larger image.)

Outside the village centre there are 18 resource fields that are level 0. Every player's first village has the same distribution of resource fields, but additional villages may have a different distribution of fields. Each resource field is either a Woodcutter (produces Wood/Lumber), Clay Pit (produces Clay), Iron Mine (produces Iron) or Wheat Field/Cropland (produces Wheat/Crop). These fields produce a certain amount of resources per hour, depending on their levels. At level 0, each resource field produces two units per hour. There are also oases which can increase the production rate of resources, and can be occupied using a Hero when the Hero's mansion has reached a sufficient level. Resources are required to construct buildings, to sustain the population and to train and feed troops. (see below). A player can increase the production rate by upgrading the fields.

At the start of the game, the selection of buildings a player can construct is very limited. As the village is developed, a wider range of buildings become available for construction.

A greater aspect for the game is its troops. Troops are produced in the Barracks, Great Barracks, Stable, Great Stable and Workshop. They allow a player to raid other villages and steal their resources, which will benefit the attacker. When the Barracks have been upgraded to level three, the player may build an Academy, which allows them to research new types of troops; the player may also construct new types of buildings (such as the Armoury and Blacksmith ) once the Academy has been upgraded to a sufficient level. A Stable allows cavalry to be trained. These units are faster and more expensive than infantry. The Workshop allows siege engines—rams which destroy walls and catapults which destroy buildings—to be manufactured. These units are slower and more expensive than infantry and cavalry. Administrators, known more commonly as chiefs, are units which persuade enemy villages to join the attacker's realm. Units which gain experience in battle, known as Heroes, can be trained from an existing unit in the Hero's mansion.

The ultimate goal of Travian is to construct and upgrade a Wonder of the World (see End game) to level 100. The World Wonder requires millions of resources and takes a large amount of time to complete. Once a World Wonder is upgraded to level 100, the game ends and the winner and their alliance is announced. A player needs a construction plan in order to be able to construct a World Wonder; these plans are obtained from Natarian villages (see End game).

An appropriate ranking system has been created that determines the players' rank from raiding, attacking, defending and building. Players can earn medals for their profile page by taking a top 10 place in the ranks. If a player gets themselves into the top 10 ranks, and earns a medal, it will contain information about the category, the position they came and of what week in since the start of the server they earned it.

Factions

File:Travian Troops.gif

From the left are the Teuton, Gaul, and Roman troops as depicted in game.

There are three tribes available to be played, the Romans, the Gauls, and the Teutons. Each has their own characteristics. The Romans build faster than other tribes, the Gauls defend better than the others, and the Teutons are geared towards an aggressive style of play.

However, the actual style always comes down to the player, and his/her style of play. The fourth tribe, known as the "Natars", are an NPC tribe who were—according to the game—the enslavers of the Gauls and the Teutons before the Romans invaded Travian. The Natars enjoy many benefits normal tribes do not, but only come into the game as part of the end game sequence, more specifically, 300 days after the start of the server (except if the player is on a speed server, in which case they appear after 100 days).

Another NPC tribe is the "Nature" tribe, which the creatures occupying abandoned oases belong to. Unlike the other four tribes, Nature 'troops' do not attack.

Villages

Along with the village a player starts out with, one can also found additional villages. These additional villages increase total resource production, cause population growth and help support larger armies. To found a second village, certain preconditions must be met. These include creating and leveling up certain types of buildings, along with earning a certain amount of culture points. Culture points are automatically produced daily and accumulated, based on the amount and type of buildings in the village(s). Almost all buildings made in Travian give the village culture points. Production of culture points can be sped up by hosting parties in the village Town Hall. After the required amount of culture points are achieved, and the player has built the required buildings to the required levels, the player may train 3 Settlers to go and found a new village at any vacant area chosen. Settlers must be given 750 of each resource before they start their journey.

A player may also choose to create an Administrator (Senator, Chief or Chieftain) instead. These units need a level 20 Academy first. They allow the player to conquer another player's village and make it their own, but a player's last or only village (i.e. the capital) cannot be conquered this way.

Alliances

The game is heavily geared towards cooperative play. To be successful, players often need to work with others in an alliance and with allies. It is to all practicable purposes impossible for any single player to win, but an alliance can win together.

Resources can be traded between players, and towns can be reinforced with another player's troops. An in-game alliance feature is available, providing the main catalyst for strategic play within Travian; players join and fight together from mutual benefit. Within an alliance, players can view attack and defense information for all alliance members, and also benefit from improved communication tools such as mass alliance-wide in-game messages.

Since the maximum number of members in an alliance is 60, 'wings' tend to form as an alliance develops. Splitting into wings entitles having multiple sub-alliances, often with similar names, acting as one alliance but in different areas of the game. Players in the same alliance may attack each other, but this would be considered treason. Towards the end of a round, different alliances often join together, resulting in larger coalitions (known as meta alliances); other diplomatic agreements include non-aggression pacts (NAP) and confederations.

A ranking system determines alliances' rank from attacking, defending, raiding and growth. Alliance earn medals for their profile page by ranking in the top 10 for a category. The medal will contain information about the category, the position they came and when they earned it.

End game

Each Travian server ends with the "end game" sequence. For normal servers the sequence begins after about 300 days, and for Speed3x servers, it starts after about 100 days. After this time has elapsed the Natars, a vicious tribe controlled by the computer, are released. As the players on the server begin to build the Wonder of the World, the plans of which they have captured from the Natars, they meet resistance from both enemy players and alliances and the Natars. With every five levels that the Wonder is upgraded, the Natars attack the villages containing the Wonders until level 95, when they will then attack upon the completion of every new level. The first player to build their World Wonder to level 100 wins the server, which stops and restarts after a period of time (generally about 3 weeks). Then a new game begins, and the cycle repeats.

Version history

File:Travian navbar.png

Travian 3.5 introduced changes to the navigation bar, which, until then, used images from version 2 for the village views.

File:Travian 3.5 icons.png

Travian 3.5 also introduced changes to the resource production icons as can be seen here. Earlier versions did not picture as detailed images.

Version Date 1 5 September 2004 2 12 March 2005 3 30 June 2006 3.5 3 February 2009 3.6 4 November 2009

Key Meaning Red Old release Yellow Old release, supported Green Latest English-language release Purple Latest release

Version 3 featured oases which could be annexed, and would supplement the player's hourly resource production, as opposed to the oases in version 2, which were only present for visual appeal. Version 3 also introduced 'heroes', units which gain experience in battles. In version 3, the maximum level buildings can be extended to have been increased; moreover, the resource fields in the player's capital village can be upgraded infinitely, at least theoretically. In practice, crop fields and clay pits can reach level 19 and woodcutters and iron mines can reach level 18, if the player does not have the Great Warehouse or Great Granary artifact. This requires the village centre to have 12 warehouses and 7 granaries. An edition of this version where events take place three times faster, known as Travian Speed3x, was released later. Update 3.1 introduced "quests", which players can complete to receive rewards in the form of resources and game Gold from the Questmaster.

On March 16, 2007, an announcement was made about the release of Travian Classic, known as Travian 2.5, which was based on version 3 but had certain features disabled in order to make it similar to version 2. Version 3.5 was first implemented on the original .org server (German) in early February, and was implemented on other servers with the game restarting in mid-2009. It reintroduced artifacts—items which give the players bonuses once captured, e.g. more storage space—into the game. It was followed by version 3.6, which made several Plus! account-only features available to non-paying users, along with newly added features.

The full change log of Travian versions can be found on Travian FAQ.

Financing

Travian was initially financed through players upgrading accounts with Travian Plus and web banners. Later, an option for purchasing 'Gold' replaced the one for buying 'Plus' on most servers. The introduction of 'Gold' allowed players to directly influence the game mechanics: for instance, by increasing resource production, instant completion of building and researches or applying a strength bonus to troops. Accounts upgraded with Plus allowed building queues, larger maps and other functional abilities. These effects are similar to the capabilities of user scripts, but implementing these can result in a banning of the offending account as they are against the general terms and conditions of Travian. The Gold club, available since version 3.6, features attack lists and valley searches. Travian has also expanded to include a "Travian Shop" which includes Travian-related items like clothing and mugs.

See also

• Travians
• Imperion

External links

• Official FAQ
• Travian.com international servers
• Travian.org original server Template:De icon